Laura Craik on what makes London great

Ron retired last Friday. He’d been the caretaker at my kids’ school for 43 years.

As a tribute, all the kids dressed up as him, in plaid shirts, shorts, hi-vis vests and cardboard record decks, the latter in recognition of all the years he’d DJed at school discos. Other than his penchant for playing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’, Ron was solid. True, he could be grumpy. But he was also the first to help out in a crisis. When, during his leaving party, five tower blocks next to the school were suddenly evacuated due to fire safety fears, it was only ill-health that prevented Ron from mucking in. Forty of the affected families have kids at Ron’s school.

If Grenfell is a monument to catastrophic greed, injustice and the divide between rich and poor, it is also a call to arms. You can do nothing. Or you can do something. And what London overwhelmingly proved is that it wants to do something. Maybe the politicians don’t. But the people do. All the people. So many people. When the sky falls in, out come the pillars of the community to help prop it up again. It’s often said that those who have the least give the most. Maybe they have more empathy. Maybe they haven’t used money to build a wall between themselves and those less fortunate. And I look around this noisy, overcrowded city that I love, and think: there is so much that divides us. But there is more that unites us. It’s our communities that make our city what it is.

BROOKLYN NIGHTS

I was almost too busy freaking out about being in the same room as David’s mum Sandra Beckham and Jackie Adams (Victoria Beckham’s mum) AT THE SAME TIME to notice the stunning brunette in the long, emerald-green slip dress at Brooklyn Beckham’s private view. Trust Brooklyn to bagsy the best-looking girl in the room: apparently singer-songwriter Joy Crookes is his new girlfriend, if ‘leaving in the same car as him’ constitutes such a thing. But back to Sandra and Jackie. Sandra looked dashing in a black trouser suit, while Jackie looked trim in a polka-dot dress. Other than Harper, the entire clan was celebrating Brooklyn’s new photography book. But while David tried to hold my attention* with a witty anecdote, I only had eyes for Sandra. At one point, our eyes met, which encouraged me to request to follow her on Instagram. She hasn’t accepted.

*He ignored me.

FIELDING PECKISH

Travelling through City Airport recently, I was picking up my usual lardy Pret breakfast (mozzarella and tomato croissant, insipid flat white on account of Pret’s weird refusal to use full-fat milk) when my eyes rested on a tall bloke in a velvet frock coat. It was Noel Fielding, as I live and breathe. ‘Shall I grab you an egg pot, babe?’ asked his companion. And the two sat down to eat their parsimonious 104-calorie breakfast. I have sympathy for Noel, who, according to reports from the set of GBBO, is ‘refusing to taste some of the cakes because he’s worried about getting fat’. On the one hand, getting paid to eat pastries is the best job in the world. On the other hand, it’s a chocolate-frosted poisoned chalice. Not everyone is blessed with the fast metabolism of Mary Berry. Those who are? Let them eat cake. Those who aren’t? Let them eat egg pots. Without judgement.